Obituaries in 1999

ABEL, HAROLD ERNEST, who died on November 3, 1999, aged 78, was an agency cricket reporter for more than 30 years, and from 1976 to 1981 cricket correspondent of the Press Association. His connection with Wisden dated back to the 1950 edition, when he was a young staff member of the Cricket Reporting Agency which was then responsible for the Almanack's editorial material. He remained as Surrey correspondent until 1985. Abel was the epitome of an old-fashioned agency reporter, whose prose is ubiquitous but normally anonymous: quick, fair-minded, methodical, shrewd, self-effacing. He was a genial man and a kindly colleague.

ALPASS, HERBERT JOHN HAMPDEN, died on March 16, 1999, aged 92. Hampden Alpass had an exceptional record as a left-arm spinner at Clifton College and went on to play seven matches for Gloucestershire in the late 1920s with less obvious success. He remained a useful village cricketer and a friend of Walter Hammond. Alpass became a solicitor and chairman of Bristol Rovers FC.

AMSTERDAM, LESLIE LENNOX DAYMOND, drowned in the Berbice River, Guyana, on March 9, 1999, aged 64, while trying to board a launch. He played for British Guiana from 1958-59 to 1964-65, and scored 100 against Jamaica in 1963-64. Later, he became an administrator, and managed the West Indies team in the series against India in 1982-83.

BAILEY, ROBIN, who died on January 14, 1999, aged 79, was an actor who came to embody a blazered MCC buffer for millions of TV viewers. Bailey played the Brigadier, the narrator of Peter Tinniswood's Tales from A Long Room, which enjoyed great popularity in the 1980s. He played a similar sort of cricket nut in Charters and Caldicott, a TV spin-off from the film The Lady Vanishes. In real life, he was a keen schoolboy player and a lifelong follower of the game.

BEVEGE, BARBARA, who died after a long illness on April 29, 1999, aged 56, was the first woman to score both a Test century and a one-day international century for New Zealand. She played only five Tests, but made 100 not out against India in Dunedin in 1976-77; the one-day century came against the International XI in the 1982 World Cup, when she put on 180 with Lesley Murdoch.

BHATTACHARYA, S. K., who died on May 7, 1999, aged 79, umpired two Tests in India. Unfortunately, the second was the Hyderabad Test against New Zealand in 1969-70, which is remembered for the umpires' failure to get the pitch mown on the rest day. On an over-grassed pitch, India were shot out for 89.

BOTHAM, LESLIE JOHN, died on April 17, 1999, aged 68. Les Botham was a stylish wicket-keeper who played eight matches for Victoria and was picked for the Prime Minister's XI against the 1958-59 MCC team.

BRODRIBB, ARTHUR GERALD NORCOTT, died on October 7, 1999, aged 84. Gerald Brodribb was one of cricket's most original authors. His best-known work, Next Man In, first published in 1952 but subsequently updated twice, took cricket's Laws, and re-examined them all with an eye to their quirks, oddities and exceptions. He adopted a similar approach in Hit for Six eight years later. Brodribb also wrote biographies of Felix, Gilbert Jessop and Maurice Tate. He ran a prep school in Sussex until it was forced to close when it lost its site. Brodribb turned to archaeology and became an expert in Roman ceramics.

BRYANT, LEONARD ERIC, died on November 28, 1999, aged 63. Eric Bryant was a slow left-arm bowler who played 22 first-class games for Somerset between 1958 and 1960. He walked out of county cricket shortly after being no-balled five times for throwing against Gloucestershire at Bath by umpire Hugo Yarnold; in an era where the subject was much-discussed, there had been whispers about Bryant's action, especially for his quicker ball, round the circuit. He went back and became a successful businessman in his home town, Weston-super-Mare, and both captain and groundsman of Weston CC. Tales of his eccentricity are legendary and largely unprintable, the Weston Mercury reported fondly after his death, but he is the only Weston player to have taken his cricket gear off, had a shower and then dressed in his ordinary clothes while smoking a lighted cigarette, which at no time left his lips during the whole procedure.

BURNET, JOHN RONALD, OBE, died on March 7, 1999, aged 80. Ronnie Burnet was a central figure in Yorkshire strife over two generations. The last of Yorkshire's amateur captains, he was plunged - aged 39 and rather portly - from the Bradford League and captaincy of the county Second Eleven into the shark-infested waters of the Yorkshire dressing-room in 1958. Sort things out, were his battle orders, and they were duly sorted. He lasted only two seasons: in the first, Yorkshire finished out of the top ten in the Championship for only the second time ever; in the second, they ended Surrey's seven-year dominance and won the title. Most observers of the period gave Burnet the credit for rebuilding a team that would go on to dominate the 1960s. He was a great man who took on a dirty job, said Fred Trueman. Factionalism had been rife under the previous captain, Billy Sutcliffe, but Burnet rapidly established his authority - with dramatic consequences when Yorkshire announced in July 1958 that Johnny Wardle, the senior pro and chief dissident, would be sacked. Yorkshire lost three other Test players that year, but had enough young talent to compensate. Burnet, who averaged 12.63 with the bat over the two seasons, then had the sense and grace to retire. He was brought back to centre stage nearly a quarter of a century later as chairman of both Yorkshire's cricket committee and of a task force delegated to solve the crisis over Geoff Boycott. But Boycott was even more of an over-mighty subject than Wardle. Though Burnet insisted everything can be mended by frankness and understanding, this time the sorting proved more difficult. Burnet- like most of the old guard - was voted off the committee by Boycott's supporters. He was chairman of a chemical company for 23 years, and was awarded the OBE for his Sports Council work.

BUTTERFIELD, LEONARD ARTHUR, died on July 7, 1999, aged 85. Len Butterfield played for New Zealand in the retrospectively elevated Wellington Test match against Australia in 1945-46: he was lbw to Bill O'Reilly for nought in both innings and, though he bowled quite well (13 overs for 24), he did not take a wicket either. This left him on the list of ten players (beginning with G. F. Grace and ending, at present, with Gavin Hamilton) to be out for a pair in their only Test. For Butterfield, there was no chance for any kind of recovery, as it was his last first-class match. In fact, he had been a very useful all-rounder for Canterbury, and his 82 against Otago in 1944-45 earned him a place in the South Island team against the North. Bowling right-arm seamers, he caused a sensation in the second innings by taking the first five wickets for nine in 12 overs. But with the score at 44 for five, he had to go off injured, and the North recovered to win the game. For 21 years, Butterfield was the chief stipendiary steward for the New Zealand Trotting Conference.

CARRINGTON, ELIJAH, who died on November 19, 1998, aged 84, was a miner from Blackwell who played 50 times for the strong Derbyshire side of the 1930s. He was a resolute middle-order batsman in the 1935 team, which came second in the Championship. He began 1936 by scoring 72 in the opening match against Hampshire but, as Derbyshire headed towards their only title, Carrington lost form and his place in the side. He was released in 1937, never having surpassed the 80 he scored in 105 minutes against Worcestershire in 1934.

CHATURVEDI, ASHWINI KUMAR, who died on July 19, 1999, aged 63, was a Ranji Trophy batsman for Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. He represented Central Zone against MCC in 1961-62.

CHRISTOPHERSON, JOHN CLIFFORD, who died on January 8, 1999, aged 89, was a middle-order batsman who won a Cambridge Blue in 1931. He appeared in three matches for Kent, and also played for H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI and the Free Foresters. His finest hour came at Hove in June 1931 when he opened and scored 75 out of 165, nearly taking the University to victory.

CLARKE, SYLVESTER THEOPHILUS, died suddenly on December 4, 1999, aged 44. He died the day after Sir Conrad Hunte and a month after Malcolm Marshall, completing a terrible treble for Barbadian cricket. Yet it was estimated that Clarke's funeral was the best-attended of the three. You see, said one Bajan, he was one of us. Clarke played in only 11 Test matches, and six of those were when West Indies were weakened by the absence of their World Series players. But he was an exceptional fast bowler, and in ten years with Surrey rapidly acquired a reputation as perhaps the most feared of them all. He bowled chest-on, and he had a very big chest. His stock delivery zeroed in towards the batsman's body, and his bouncer was very hard indeed to pick up, prompting persistent bar-room and dressing-room whispers about its legality. Dennis Amiss called it a trap-door ball- because it came out of nowhere. Clarke was canny enough to acquire an out-swinger as well, or at least a ball that held its line. His style was the reverse of the whispering run perfected by his contemporary Michael Holding: As soon as you heard his foot banging down, said one team-mate, you knew it was going to be really quick. There were different views about the extent to which the malignant outcome was the result of malignant intent - he was a quiet man both off the field and on it - though he would certainly target the odd individual. He would sometimes get most incensed by tailenders who backed away: instead of taking the opportunity to bowl them, he would ensure that, however far they went to leg, the ball would follow. Those on the right side of him were loyal and affectionate: He was one of the nicest blokes I ever met, said his team-mate Alec Stewart.

Clarke began on Barbados with the Kent club, where he had watched Charlie Griffith bowl, and made his debut for the island in 1977-78. In his third match he took a hat-trick against Trinidad and, before the season was over, was in the apology for a Test team West Indies had to field against Australia after the World Series players walked out. He never played another home Test. Before injuring his back, he played in five Tests out of six in India the following season but suffered from dropped catches. Then he made the full-strength team on tours of Pakistan in 1980-81 and Australia in 1981-82. Standing in the outfield during the first Test staged at Multan, he was pelted by oranges. Cheek-turning not being his custom, he picked up a brick boundary marker and threw it at one of the ringleaders, who was taken to hospital. The game was suspended, and so was Clarke. He did visit his victim, but the incident did his long-term prospects no good and, when the West Indian rebels went to South Africa, Clarke signed up. He then built a secondary career playing for Transvaal, Orange Free State and Northern Transvaal in subsequent southern summers, terrorising batsmen there. His own batting was intermittently explosive: in 1981 he scored a century in 62 minutes at Swansea. Clarke's relationship with Surrey broke down in 1989, by which time the rum may have been playing a part. In 1993-94, he turned up at the Bridgetown nets on England's tour - well-fortified, according to eyewitnesses - and, wearing training shoes without socks, took a turn bowling to Graham Thorpe off a short run. It was as quick as anything England saw all tour.

CLUES, ARTHUR, who died on October 3, 1998, aged 74, played rugby league for both Leeds and Australia, and club cricket for Leeds CC. He is believed to be the only man to score both a century and a try at Headlingly.

DANI, HEMCHANDRA TUKARAM, died on December 19, 1999, aged 66. Bal Dani was a prolific Ranji Trophy batsman for Maharashtra and Services in the 1950s and 1960s, scoring 15 centuries in the competition. He was also a regular and versatile back-up bowler, switching from swing to spin as his career progressed. Dani played one Test, against Pakistan at Bombay in 1952-53, but failed to get to the crease in a match in which only four Indian wickets fell, though he dismissed Nazar Mohammad with the new ball in the second innings. Later, he was a long-serving selector.

DARWALL-SMITH, RANDLE FREDERICK HICKS, who died on July 17, 1999, aged 85, was a fast-medium bowler who won a Blue for Oxford every year from 1935 to 1938. Against Gloucestershire at The Parks in 1937, he dismissed both Charles Barnett and Walter Hammond with quick break-backs, and finished with figures of seven for 44. Oxford won the game for the second successive year; the previous time Darwall-Smith scored 54, his career-best, at No. 9.

DAVIES, WILLIAM, died in September 1999, aged 70. Bill Davies was a teacher who became Lancashire's scorer from 1986 to 1997, efficiently straddling the switch from manual to computerised scoring.

DEEDAT, AHMED ISMAIL, was killed on August 15, 1998, aged 63. He was playing golf in Durban when a car swerved out of control on a road dividing the course, and hit him. Deedat was a stylish batsman for the South African Indians in the racially divided cricket of the 1950s, and shared in two match-winning century stands with Basil D'Oliveira in the unofficial Tests on the South African non-racial team's tour of East Africa in 1958.

DEIGHTON, Colonel JOHN HAROLD GREENWAY, OBE, MC, died on September 15, 1999, aged 79. John Deighton was one of those sporting Renaissance men whose true cricketing ability was never tested at the highest level because he had so much else to do. He was a fast-medium bowler and handy batsman for the Army, Combined Services, Lancashire and MCC, and made 35 first-class appearances. But he was distracted by what for him were the two wars: in 1944, he won an immediate MC for his gallantry in Italy, and he was also involved in bitter fighting in Korea. He played just seven matches for Lancashire but showed enough to earn selection for MCC against the 1948 Australians. On paper, the MCC side was incredibly strong - comprising nine England players and Martin Donnely - but it was crushed. The one great success was the dismissal of Bradman, caught at slip off Deighton, for 98. Deighton was still carrying shrapnel in his arms and legs.

DEMMING, OLIVER, who died in August 1999, aged 70, achieved a moment of fame when he bowled Peter May with the first ball of the innings for Trinidad against MCC in 1953-54. May, out of form, had been controversially switched to open. Alex Bannister in Cricket Cauldron said it was a snorter of a ball, which pitched outside leg, and hit middle and off. Len Hutton, the England captain, consoled May by saying it would have dismissed Jack Hobbs. May returned to No. 3 for the next Test and hit 135; Demming, meanwhile, played only four first-class matches.

DONALDSON, WILLIAM PETER JAMES, died on August 8, 1999, aged 75. Bill Donaldson was a handsome strokeplayer for New South Wales in the years immediately after the war. He scored two rapid first-class centuries, both against Western Australia, but could not hold his place in the side, and slipped back to grade cricket, in which he was prolific.

DONGRAY, Major FREDERICK B., joined Walthamstow Cricket Club as scorer in 1910 and was still a member when he died 89 years later on January 6, 1999, aged 98. Freddie Dongray was also the longest-standing member of Essex, and was a great benefactor to local cricket. He played briefly for Sir Aubrey Smith's Hollywood CC in California, as well as for Walthamstow.

DONNELLY, MARTIN PATERSON, who died on October 22, 1999, aged 82, left an indelible impression on cricket despite the brevity of his career. As a New Zealander at Oxford, he entranced cricket-followers in the immediate post-war years in a manner surpassed only by Compton. He proved that reality matched appearance with a magnificent double-century against England in the Lord's Test of 1949. C. B. Fry said he was as good a left-hander as any he had seen, including Clem Hill and Frank Woolley. Then Donnelly retired and became a businessman in Sydney.

For New Zealanders, his career was even more tantalising, since he played only 13 of his 131 first-class games in the country. None the less, he did enough in his seven Tests to raise the country's cricketing profile, and establish himself among the country's best-remembered sporting heroes. when he was elevated to the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990, the citation read: They said he had everything as a Test batsman: style and grace; confidence and determination; success and modesty. The words they said encapsulate the sense of loss that surrounded Donnelly, despite his long life. His cricket was a victim of the war, the lowly cricketing status of his country at the time, and the game's financial circumstances.

Donnelly was born in 1917 to a country family in Waikato, one of twin brothers; his twin died in the flu epidemic the following year. Martin's sporting talent emerged quickly, though he was never tall - not much bigger than a lemonade bottle, said one contemporary - and was known to his team-mates as Squib. In 1933, he got a letter from Bradman, organised by his Uncle Vic, looking forward to the young man taking his place amongst his country's champions. It happened very rapidly.

After just one first-class match for Wellington, in which he scored 22 and 38, Donnelly was selected, aged 19, for the 1937 tour of England. The selectors were impressed by his style and, above all, by his outfielding. They kept faith and picked him for the First Test at Lord's even though he came into the match with two successive ducks. He got a duck again, but that was no worse than Len Hutton, who was also making his debut. In the second innings, he came in at No. 9 and helped save the game in idiosyncratic fashion, which included a certain amount of hooking. As the series developed, his qualities shone through: he stood alone as New Zealand collapsed to defeat at Old Trafford, and scored fifty in barely an hour at The Oval. He had already scored 144 there against Surrey. Wisden praised his batting style and his coolness.

Though he played some cricket at home over the next few seasons, there were no major opportunities. Donnelly volunteered for military service, and in 1942 embarked for Egypt, where he was a tank commander, and star of the show at the Gezira Sporting Club. In some Cairo bazaar he picked up the multicoloured cap that he used as a lucky mascot. The war took him to Italy, and - evidently with a little help from the sympathetic New Zealand commander, General Freyburg - to England in time for the moment when the public was ready for cricket again. He scored magnificent hundreds in exhibition matches at Edgbaston and Scarborough in 1945, but topped them both in the match Denzil Batchelor called the perfect game, when the Dominions beat England at Lord's with eight minutes to spare. Donnelly hit 133 in three hours. You sat and rejoiced, wrote Batchelor, hugging your memories to your heart and gradually letting the dazzle fade out of your eyes.

That autumn, Donnelly went up to Oxford to read history, and became a Dark Blue institution. His graceful batting was regarded by a generation of undergraduates as the best free show in town; as soon as the word went round that he was in, they would flock to watch. In 1946, he scored six centuries, including 142 against Cambridge. As captain 1947, he averaged 67; though he missed his century in the University Match, he scored 162 for the Gentlemen, which included 50 in 40 minutes. It was the climax to a delightful display, said Wisden, his punishment of any ball not a perfect length being severe and certain; he excelled with off-drives; hooked or cut anything short. This ensured his selection as a Cricketer of the Year, the article casually describing him as the world's best left-hander. By then, he had played fly-half for an all-conquering Oxford rugby team and, less successfully, centre for England at Lansdowne Road on a bitterly cold day when Ireland scored what was then their biggest win over them.

But Donnelly's thoughts were already turning to the future. He got a job with Courtaulds, who were sympathetic enough to let him play half the matches for Warwickshire in 1948- without his customary success - and to join the 1949 New Zealand tour. Together with another left-hander, Bert Sutcliffe, he taught the English public and cricket establishment to understand that here was a country of growing sporting significance, which should never again be palmed off with three-day Tests. All four games were drawn and Donnelly failed only in the last. He made 64 at Headingley, and 75 and 80 at Old Trafford. Sandwiched in between was his epic at Lord's, when he scored what remains the only double-century for New Zealand against England: 206 in just under six hours. But his career was almost over. In 1950, he married; that year he played just four matches for Warwickshire, captaining them against Yorkshire when he scored his only century in county cricket: Wisden almost drooled: glorious... artistic...perfect timing. Then it was over. He sailed for Sydney in the autumn to become the sales and marketing manager of Courtaulds Australia. His cricket thereafter was minimal. Though he played in a first-class match as late as 1961, for the New Zealand Governor-General's XI against MCC, he spent far more time fly-fishing. He had certain similarities with Bradman, wrote Alan Gibson in 1964, the build, the hawk-eye, the forcing stroke square of the wicket on the leg side, the determination to establish a psychological supremacy over the bowler as soon as possible. But Donnelly did not share Bradman's passion never to get out. As with his batting, so with his career. As Frank Keating put it: It was as if all his own cricket had been a student pastime, a youthful wheeze not worth mentioning any more.

DUTTON, RONALD MOORE, who died on March 25, 1999, aged 96, played two first-class matches for Minor Counties in the 1930s, scoring 56 against Oxford in 1936. He played for Cheshire over a 25-year span: 1926 to 1951.

ELGAR, ALLAN GRAHAM, who shot himself on January 15, 1999, aged 38, was a member of the Western Province team that dominated South African cricket in 1985-86. Elgar was a right-hand batsman and off-spinner who played for various provincial teams in the 1980s, finishing as captain of Boland B in 1993-94.

ELSON, GEOFFREY, died on December 30, 1999, aged 86. Gus Elson was a left-hand bat and slow left-arm bowler who played just one match for Warwickshire in 1947 but spent many years with Coventry and North Warwickshire CC. His son Pip played professional golf.

EVANS, THOMAS GODFREY, CBE, died on May 3, 1999, aged 78. Godfrey Evans was arguably the best wicket-keeper the game has ever seen. Debates about wicket-keepers cannot be stilled by statistics in the way that a challenge to Don Bradman might be. What is beyond question is that Evans was the game's most charismatic keeper: the man who made the game's least obtrusive specialism a spectator sport in itself. His energy and enthusiasm brought the best out of other fielders, whatever the state of the game. But he added to that a technical excellence that has probably never been surpassed.

Evans was born in North London, but moved to Kent when he was a baby and was brought up by his grandfather after the death of his mother. At Kent College, he was an all-round sportsman, and played in the school team mainly as a batsman: the games master thought wicket-keeper was a good place to hide one of the team's less mobile fielders. He made his Kent debut in July 1939 as a batsman, but kept wicket in three of his next four games before the war came. His reputation only flourished when the former England captain, A. E. R. Gilligan, saw him in a Services match in 1942 and ensured that he received invitations for the major wartime matches.

By the end of the first post-war summer, Evans had displaced Paul Gibb as England's wicket-keeper, after an excellent performance for the Players at Lord's when he did not concede a bye. He let through one on his Test debut at The Oval, which irritated him years later: a silly little blighter from Jim Langridge, outside off stump. That kind of perfectionism ensured that there was no serious challenge to his pre-eminence for the next 13 years. At Sydney, in 1946-47, he began standing up to Alec Bedser, at first only for the old ball, then all the time. His menacing presence there made the bowler better and more confident; above all, according to Bedser, it ensured that he bowled a full length. Bedser got the idea from Herbert Strudwick, who had stood up to Maurice Tate; he insists that Evans's fingers were never even marked by the experience. He was so quick, and had such wonderful hands, you see.

Evans was not ashamed to tumble, perhaps making the comparatively easy look difficult. But he also executed stumpings with lightning speed, making the difficult look absurdly easy. He was one of the most theatrical of cricketers but, as with all the great performers, the apparent ease masked a self-discipline that the audience never suspected. His greatest secret was the meticulously observed lunchtime siesta ritual, which enabled him to keep fresh and focused. This gave him the ability to conduct the team like an orchestra, and he could flog life from the tired limbs of his teammates at the end of the hottest day. He had a remarkable physique: strong, sturdy, squat and astonishingly resilient, plus a keen eye, remarkable concentration and sharp reflexes. Evans might have taken up boxing for a career: he flattened several opponents before the Kent authorities intervened and told him to choose between the sports. He chose.

At home, he missed only five Tests in 12 seasons between 1947 and 1958, and in all played 91. After the 1946-47 tour, Bill O'Reilly wrote that wicket-keeping was the only department where England matched Australia. In 1950-51, according to Trevor Bailey, Evans did not miss a chance, and took one at Melbourne that still amazed Bailey years later, when he caught Neil Harvey standing up to Bedser one-handed, horizontal, and airborne down the leg side off a genuine leg-glance. But Evans's value in the Irish team of the playwright Samuel Beckett. Gwynn scored a first-innings duck and was called Mr J. D. Groynne by the 1927 Wisden. He was a civil engineer who oversaw construction of the Churchill Barrier at Scapa Flow.

HACKING, JOHN KENNETH, who died on August 3, 1999, aged 90, was a batsman who played one game for Warwickshire, at Old Trafford in 1946.

HASLEWOOD, JOHN STEDMAN OWEN, MC, who died on November 20, 1999, aged 89, was a formidable all-round sportsman at Oxford. Cricket came some way down the list, and he did not play a first-class match. However, he later became an enthusiastic member of the MCC Committee and did much of the work that led to the first indoor school at Lord's in 1977. Haslewood was also on the board of The Cricketer. He won his MC as an Irish Guards officer in 1945.

HAYES, ARTHUR VIVIAN, died on November 11, 1999, aged 76. Doc Hayes was Border's wicket-keeper in the Currie Cup in the early 1950s.

HENRY, IAN CLIFFORD, who died on December 20, 1999, aged 85, scored 80 in his only first-class match: for Free Foresters against Oxford in 1937.

HICKS, ALFRED WILLIAM, died suddenly on June 20, 1999, aged 82, while watching the World Cup final on TV. Buster Hicks was a reliable opening batsman and seam bowler for Eastern Province and Border in the decade after the war. In his first season, 1946-47, playing against Border, he took the catch that ensured they were 34 all out, having needed only 42 to win. The following year, he scored 67 not out and a career-best 77 against Transvaal. He moved to Border for four seasons, three as captain, before switching back to Eastern Province; in his final match he captained them against Peter May's MCC team in 1956-57.

HIERN, ROSS NOEL, who died on August 21, 1999, aged 77, was a South Australian opening bowler who took a wicket with his first ball in first-class cricket in 1949-50. He also took a wicket with the first ball of his second match a week later. His scalps were distinguished ones: Colin McDonald and Ken Mackay, and on the second occasion he went on to take five for 49. Hiern played a further ten matches in the early 1950s with less success. His son Barry also opened the bowling for South Australia.

HINGS, JOHN PRESTON, who died in September 1999, aged 88, was a batsman with the Leicester Ivanhoe club who played two games for the county as an amateur in 1934.

HOSSELL, JOHN JOHNSON, died on July 8, 1999, aged 85. Jock Hossell was an amateur left-hand batsman for Warwickshire just before and after the war. He won his cap in 1946 but, in 35 matches, his highest score was 83. His left-arm spin, negligible in county cricket, was effective for years in the Birmingham League.

HOY, COLIN, died on March 24, 1999, aged 76. Col Hoy umpired nine Tests in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, including the most famous of them. After Joe Solomon hit the stumps at Brisbane in 1960-61, Hoy gave Ian Meckiff run out to record the first tie in Test history. West Indian captain Frank Worrell said he would be happy to have the same umpires - Hoy and Colin Egar - again; and he did, in all five Tests. However, Hoy retired from umpiring after that season and concentrated on business and playing grade cricket in Brisbane. He made a brief comeback as an umpire during World Series Cricket.

HUNT, ALMA VICTOR, OBE, died on March 3, 1999, aged 88. Champ Hunt was the best cricketer ever to emerge from Bermuda, and dominated the island's cricket for decades, both as a player and an administrator. He was invited for trials by West Indies for the 1933 tour of England and distinguished himself with both bat and ball, before it was apparently decided that, as a Bermudan, he was ineligible. Instead, he became a professional for Aberdeenshire and played for them both before and after the war, once taking seven for 11 as West Lothian were bowled out for 48 and then scoring all the runs himself for a ten-wicket win. He played just two first-class matches in his life: one for G. C. Grant's XI in 1932-33, and for Scotland against Yorkshire in 1938. Later, he returned to Bermuda, and managed their team on several tours. He asked for a piper to play a lament at his funeral to mark the Scottish connection.

HUNTE, Sir CONRAD CLEOPHAS, died of a heart attack after playing tennis in Sydney on December 3, 1999, aged 67. Conrad Hunte was one of the greatest West Indian batsmen of a great generation; he also played a major role in the reconstruction of South African cricket, and was a figure of moral authority in the wider world. As a batsman, Hunte could match anyone stroke-for-stroke, especially on the leg side, if he wanted. But he subdued his attacking nature in Test cricket to let his team-mates play their shots, a decision which was vital in making the West Indian side of the early 1960s one of the most complete of all time. It was an early signal of the determined thoughtfulness that was to stamp his whole life.

Hunte was born in a one-room house on Barbados's Atlantic coast. His father worked on a sugar plantation, and Conrad was the oldest of nine children. He began playing cricket with the village boys at the age of six, using a palm-frond as a bat. His father was more anxious that he should get an education, and prevailed enough to ensure that his teenage son got work as a primary school teacher. But cricket slowly won the contest. Batting first in a representative match between two local leagues at Kensington Oval in 1950-51, Hunte was dropped on nought by Denis Atkinson, and went on to 137 not out. That secured him a place in the Barbados team when he was just 18, and he made 63 on debut against Trinidad. However, there was little first-class cricket in the Caribbean at that time, and his progress was frustratingly slow. He made 151 and 95 for Barbados in the important matches against E. W. Swanton's XI in 1955-56, and hoped that would get him selected for the 1957 tour of England. In the meantime he went to work at a bus plant and cotton mill in Lancashire, trying to get a chance in the Leagues. Out of sight, out of mind, he was omitted in 1957 - allegedly because he never replied to a letter - and spent that summer playing for Enfield.

He finally got his chance in front of his home crowd, when Pakistan toured the West Indies early the following year, and batted throughout his first day in Test cricket, making 142. Two Tests later at Kingston, Hunte made 260 - an innings overshadowed because his partner in a stand of 446 was Garry Sobers, who scored his record 365 not out - and followed that with a third century, a mere 114, in his fourth match, at Georgetown. Since Sobers made twin centuries, he was again second fiddle. Such form could not last, and he struggled in the subcontinent in 1958-59. My success had gone to my head, he admitted later. When the tour reached Pakistan, he was dropped. But, for all their strengths, West Indies were short of opening batsmen; indeed, throughout his Test career, Hunte never had a settled opening partner. Also, his class was not in doubt, and by Australia in 1960-61 he was a fixture, making the crucial throw in the Tied Test that stopped Wally Grout scoring the winning run, and then hitting 110 at Melbourne.

The cricket on that tour, however, was secondary to the real change in his life. The captain, Frank Worrell, encouraged the players to build good relations locally, and Hunte impressed many people with the eloquence of his speeches. A local journalist, James Coulter, took him to see a film called The Crowning Experience, based on the life of the black American teacher Mary McLeod Bethune. This was promoted by Moral Re-Armament, the then-vogueish organisation which strives to provide an ethical basis for society. In England, on the way back home, he went to see Dickie Dodds, the former Essex batsman and dedicated MRA man. Hunte was taken to a conference in Switzerland, and resolved to pay back £10 he had cheated on his tour expenses three years earlier, and to live his life by new standards: absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, absolute love. Henceforth, between cricket commitments, he travelled on behalf of MRA.

Hunte came to England in 1963 as Frank Worrell's vice-captain, and he took the decision, with the same certainty that he declared for MRA, to curb his attacking instincts and become the team's sheet-anchor. He began the series at Old Trafford with one match-winning innings, 182, and finished it at The Oval with another, 108 not out. When Worrell retired, Hunte hoped for and expected the captaincy. Sobers was appointed instead; there was speculation that Hunte's heart-on-sleeve nature and his continuous proselytising for his beliefs even within the dressing-room told against him. He wrestled with his bitterness and his conscience for six weeks before waking up a rather bemused Sobers in his hotel room to proclaim that he would keep playing, and do his utmost. He did: though he failed to make a century in the next series, home to Australia in 1964-65, Hunte topped the Test averages with 550 runs at 61.11. He made another Old Trafford hundred at the start of the 1966 series, and his eighth and last Test century in Bombay that December, batting with the debutant Clive Lloyd. His final Test average, just above 45 in 44 Tests, was a mark of his quality.

Some sources give Hunte the credit for persuading his team-mates to stick with the tour in India after a riot in Calcutta, though it is uncertain how much the team listened to him by then. He was in the habit of leaving notes around the dressing-room containing uplifting messages: It was tiresome for some of the boys, said Sobers. Even Hunte's mentor Dickie Dodds admits there might have been a problem: They certainly pulled his leg. But I think he was the conscience of the team, and his moral force gave the whole side an ethos. After retiring from cricket, Hunte worked for better race relations through an MRA inter-racial group, and travelled the world before settling in Atlanta, where his wife Patricia was a TV newsreader. In 1991, as South Africa inched towards change, he rang Ali Bacher and pleaded to be allowed to help the reconciliation process. He kept phoning, then arrived and stayed for seven years, quietly funded by MCC, with the title National Development Coach. The emphasis was on motivating and inspiring young people in the townships. He was a magnificent influence. However, shortly before he died, Hunte had returned to Barbados, with encouragement from the Government, which knighted him in 1998. There he won a fiercely contested election to became President of the Barbados Cricket Association, with a mandate to revive it. There was talk of him standing for the presidency of the West Indies Cricket Board. Amid all this, he remained deeply committed to the cause of his life, and was due to speak at an Australian MRA conference when he died. I've never met a better person, said Bacher, who worked with him all through the South African years. I never heard him speak ill of anyone.

INNISS, Sir CLIFFORD DE LISLE, KL, QC, who died on December 21, 1998, aged 88, played for Barbados between the wars, scoring 72 and 80 against British Guiana in 1929-30. While studying law at Oxford, he was called on to join the 1933 West Indians as a batsman for two matches. He made 42 out of a stand of 149 in 150 minutes against MCC while George Healdley made his first century at Lord's. Inniss later became Chief Justice of British Honduras (now Belize).

JACKSON, PERCY FREDERICK, died on April 27, 1999, aged 87. Peter Jackson was a Scottish-born off-spinner who played for Worcestershire over four decades. He made his debut in 1929 against Lancashire, took nought for 120 and bagged a pair. But he survived until 1950, bowling close to medium-pace and getting better as he grew older, finishing with 1,159 wickets at 26.31, including 100 in a season four times. He took nine for 45 against Somerset at Dudley in 1935. In 549 first-class innings, he never scored more than 40, and that was on a shirtfront; he was, however, a brilliant leg slip. Worcestershire almost lost him in 1939, because Jackson found he could earn more money playing league cricket and turning out for the county only in midweek. But he returned after the war and had his best season in 1947. A most genial and gentle man, said the county's official history, he was never as confident of his own ability as others were.

JAISIMHA, MOTGANHALLI LAXMANARSU, died on July 6, 1999, aged 60, from lung cancer. Jai was one of India's best players and most endearing personalities of the era just before the country began to fight the established cricketing powers on equal terms. With a silk scarf around his neck, and equally elegant on and off-drives to go with it, he made cricket seem chic, which had an impact on the then-young men who later took Indian cricket to greater heights. Jaisimha played in the Ranji Trophy for 23 consecutive seasons, captaining Hyderabad for 14 of them, and in 39 Tests, though he was sometimes omitted mysteriously by selectors who seemed to think him showy. His first Test, at Lord's in 1959, was the 91st and last for Godfrey Evans, who died two months before him. Jaisimha, then 20, achieved nothing, and lost his place, but came back in the final Test of 1959-60 series against Australia, where he achieved an enduring footnote in history by becoming the first player ever to bat on all five days of a Test. He was not out overnight on both the first and third evenings, then batted throughout a slow fourth day. Playing for a side who were often in trouble, he was willing and able to change his method and produce the long innings that his team required. He spent 500 minutes scoring 99 against Pakistan in Kanpur in 1960-61, which included a full session with just five scoring strokes, and was then run out going for his century. But against England in 1961-62, he flowered, and scored a lovely 127 at Delhi, with a further century when England toured again two years later, and a third immediately after being flown out to Brisbane as a replacement in 1967-68. Jaisimha scored 74 and 101, which took India to the edge of victory. He was still in the team in the West Indies in 1970-71 when Sunil Gavaskar stormed on to the scene. But a new era in Indian cricket was beginning, Jaisimha was to remain as one of the midwives, playing on for Hyderabad until 1976-77. When he died was state coach, a job he did with shrewdness and humour. He bowled fast off-breaks that might have been regarded as occasional in other circumstances, but in India, with quick bowlers in short supply, had to be used to get the shine off the ball for the real spinners: he fielded magnificently. There was a notable warmth to the tributes that poured in from across Indiaafter his death. He had style, elegance and grace not only as a batsman but also as a man, said the administrator Raj Singh. A gem of a person, said Lala Amarnath.

JAMES, ERIC PEARSE, who died on March 28, 1999, aged 76, was a wheat farmer and leg-spinner who played three matches for Western Australia in the mid-1950s. A car accident when he was five left him with a shortened left leg.

JAMIEL ALI, who died in December 1998, aged 54, was a Trinidadian off-spinner who played in eight regional matches in the 1960s. Ali turned the ball sharply from an action that attracted much adverse comment but no action from umpires, and he bowled long spells on unyielding wickets. He was forced out of the game in 1967 by injury.

JILLETT, MAXWELL JOHN, AO, who died on February 27, 1999, aged 83, was the Tasmanian delegate to the Australian Cricket Board from 1969 to 1979, and secured Tasmania's promotion to the Sheffield Shield in 1977. He was also chairman of the island's Public Service Board.

KAY, JOHN, who died on February 16, 1999, aged 89, was cricket correspondent of the Manchester Evening News from just after the war until 1975. He continued as Wisden's Lancashire correspondent until 1982. He was also a considerable figure in the Lancashire leagues: the Kay family was inextricably associated with the Middleton club and, like his father and twin brother Edwin, John was a high-standard batsman. He was also a shrewd judge, credited with trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade Lancashire to sign both Frank Tyson and Basil D'Oliveira. John Kay was one of the early leading lights of the Cricket Writes' Club. He could be extremely caustic with sponsors, wrote the current secretary Derek Hodgson, whom he regarded mostly as an unnecessary intrusion in the game, and curt with colleagues whom he felt showed insufficient respect for the game and its players. Those who won his confidence found him a firm friend and a wise counsellor. His knowledge of Lancashire cricket was immense.

KIMPTON, ROGER CHARLES MacDONALD, DFC, who died on November 30, 1999, aged 83, was an all-round sporting hero at Oxford University in the 1930s. Kimpton was an Australian who played in the University Match three times, and won both a golf Blue and the freshmen's tennis tournament. His impact on Oxford, wrote E. W. Swanton, was sensational. Batting No. 7 in his second match, against Gloucestershire in 1935, he hit 160 in 155 minutes, with 26 fours: Sandy Singleton helped him put on 138 in an hour. In the same match a year later he made a hundred in each innings at a similar lick. Later that month, he scored 102 in 70 minutes against Lancashire, batting with a runner. At University, he alternated between keeping wicket and bowling wrist-spin. In 1937 he also played for Worcestershire, and made 1,568 runs in the season. However, he may have found county cricket a little constricting: His strokeplay was always a joy to watch, said Wisden's Worcestershire review, but he seldom played a big innings.Wisden suggested that he curb his rashness. That was not the Kimpton style: he became a fighter pilot, flew 140 sorties in the Pacific and provided, according to the official citation when he won the DFC, aggressive and determined leadership. After the war, he played little serious cricket but concentrated on the family business in Melbourne: he also became President of the Melbourne Club.

KINGSLEY, Sir PATRICK GRAHAM TOLER, KCVO, who died on August 24, 1999, aged 91, scored his first century at the age of eight. He was the only Wykehamist ever to have played in the Winchester XI against Eton for five years, and captained Oxford in 1930, having won Blues both the two previous years. The 1930 Oxford team was richly talented but short on harmony. The highlight of Kingsley's own cricketing career was 176 that summer against Surrey at The Oval, driving and cutting, according to Wisden, in most finished style. He was also a soccer Blue. From 1954 to 1972 Kingsley was the Secretary and Keeper of Records to the Duchy of Cornwall, in effect the chief executive of the Prince of Wales's estates; his style was paternalist rather than businesslike, which meant the tenants generally escaped rent rises.

KRISHNAMURTHY, PALLEMONI, died on January 28, 1999, aged 51. Pochiah Krishnamurthy was a tall wicket-keeper who enjoyed standing up even to fast bowlers, and played five Tests for India against West Indies in 1970-71 when Farokh Engineer was unavailable. He was also reserve keeper on the following summer's tour of England, and four years later in New Zealand and West Indies. Krishnamurthy played for Hyderabad throughout the 1970s, batting in every position and sharing hundred stands both as an opener and as a No. 11. His 218 victims in 108 first-class matches included 68 stumpings, a proportion that was by then already unthinkable anywhere outside India.

KRISHNASWAMY, AJJAMPUR RAO, who died on November 4, 1999, aged 67, was an Indian all-rounder. He captained Mysore and also played for Railways and Tamil Nadu. In two Tests against Australia in 1959-60 he was twelfth man.

LANGRIDGE, JOHN GEORGE, MBE, who died on June 27, aged 89, was one of the best English cricketers of the 20th century never to play a Test match. He turned out for Sussex from 1928 to 1955, and came into contention at the worst possible moment, earning selection for the 1939-40 tour of India which was cancelled by war. Langridge was an opening batsman with an unclassical, open stance that made him strongest on the leg side. His batting was as idiosyncratic as it was stoical, said The Times. He was not only one of the game's great accumulators, he was one of the great fidgeters, adjusting every part of his equipment before each ball, a ritual which could never be omitted. He was only ever seen without his Sussex cap when he took it off in acknowledgment of applause, a doffing which revealed a head bereft of hair above his small, round and rosy face. Langridge removed it on reaching a hundred 76 times, a figure unmatched by any other non-Test cricketer. Eight of these were double-hundreds. He remains 40th in the all-time run-scoring list; Alan Jones of Glamorgan is the only non-Test player above him. In 1933, he shared an opening stand of 490 in 350 minutes against Middlesex with Ted Bowley, which remains the fourth highest for the first wicket in first-class cricket. Langridge also took 784 catches, mainly in the slips, where his huge, disproportionate hands missed hardly anything; 69 of them came in his last season, 1955, when he was well into his forties. However, the figures understate his real standing in cricket. The Langridges - John, his elder brother James and James's son Richard - are one of the great locally rooted families who have characterised Sussex cricket. John was born in Chailey, lived in Brighton for 50 years and died in Eastbourne. After his playing career, he became a first-class umpire for 25 seasons; his concentration, his affability, and his quiet but old-fashioned insistence of standards made him universally respected. In this incarnation, he finally did make it on to the Test field: seven times. As he aged, his complexion grew more apple-red and he seemed, alongside Sam Cook, to represent everything that was best about county cricket. It was not an illusion.

LARMOUR, Sir EDWARD NOEL, KCMB, died on August 21, 1999, aged 82. Nick Larmour opened for Ireland against Scotland in 1938. He later became British High Commissioner to Jamaica.

LAWRENCE, JOY, died on June 8, 1999, aged 85. As Joy Liebert, she was a capable all-rounder and the youngest member of the England women's touring team to Australasia, in 1934-35, where she appeared in the first four Tests ever played by women. She also kept a diary, which used the word fun a lot. She met her future husband on the boat home, and later settled in Dorset, concentrating on motherhood, painting and her love of nature.

LEE, CHARLES, died on September 3, 1999, aged 75. Charlie Lee was a schoolteacher who deputised for Len Hutton as Yorkshire's opening batsman in 1952, and promptly scored 74. It was his Championship debut, after one undistinguished match against Scotland, and it turned out to be the end of his Yorkshire career as well. Curiously, a far smaller innings proved to be the making of him. A year later, he made 23 against the Australians at Stoke-on-Trent for the Minor Counties, who were bowled out for 56 and 65, mainly by Lindwall and Benaud. Derbyshire were sufficiently impressed to sign him. He was held up when he broke a leg playing football but, after finally getting into the team, Lee established himself as a typical Derbyshire batsman of the period, making 1,000 for eight successive seasons, nudging the ball a lot but never the selectors. Very occasionally, he would break out, especially during run-chases: Lee hit five sixes off Jim McConnon at Swansea in 1958, and five more at Lord's in 1961. In 1963, he became county captain but, with Les Jackson fading out, he had a hard time and the team came bottom; they rose to 12th in 1964 before Lee decided to go back to teaching. His team-mates remember him as a cheerful, kindly man, steeped in cricket lore.

LOCKWOOD, MARGARET, who died in February 1999, aged 87, kept wicket for the Yorkshire women's team, and in two Tests for England against Australia in 1951.

MacGILL, CHARLES WILLIAM TERRY, who died on October 31, 1999, aged 83, was an opening batsman and seam bowler for Western Australia. He played six matches before and after the war, taking four for 45 against Victoria in his debut season, 1938-39, and scoring 78 against South Australia the following year. His son also played for the state and his grandson, Stuart, has played for Australia.

McKENZIE, RONA UNA, MBE, who died on July 24, 1999, aged 76, was a pioneer in the development of New Zealand women's cricket. She played in seven Tests, all as captain. These included the three Tests on the New Zealanders' first tour of England, in 1954, when she had match figures of five for 33 at Headingley with her right-arm seamers. She scored 61 in her last Test, against Australia at Dunedin in 1960-61.

McPHEE, MARK WILLIAM, was killed on August 15, 1999, aged 35, when his car was in collision with a lorry outside Perth. As a 20-year-old, McPhee made a remarkable debut for Western Australia in 1984-85, when he hit 85 off a strong Victorian attack, which he followed with 135 against South Australia. But his natural aggression - which peaked five years later with a century in a session against Queensland- led to inconsistency, and he could not sustain a regular Shield place in a state crowded with batsmen. However, he played 40 games over ten years and built a reputation as a highly effective one-day player, both in his batting, his superb fielding and his unselfish approach within the team. He left a wife and three children.

MALABA, BEN, who died on September 13, 1999, aged 68, was one of the most gifted black South African cricketers in the age of apartheid. He was a skilful bowler of cutters and a ferocious hitter of the ball who, according to Basil D'Oliveira, would certainly have played for his country in normal circumstances. Against a touring team of Kenyan Asians at Hartleyvale in 1956, he took eight wickets and hit a massive six into the Liesbeek River. His son Rodney achieved some of the conventional success denied Ben, and in 1979 became the first black player in the Currie Cup.

Maqsood Ahmed, who died on January 4, 1999, aged 73, was one of the handful of cricketers to score 99 in a Test without ever reaching a century. The near-miss happened in the Lahore Test between Pakistan and India in 1954-55 when Maqsood was stumped. It was an appropriate conclusion, since he was the most carefree and aggressive batsman Pakistan had in their early years of Test cricket. He played in their first 16 Tests, and hoisted the banner of Pakistani batting from the very start. Maqsood had begun his career, before Pakistan's foundation, with 144 on his first-class debut, for Southern Punjab against Northern India at Lahore in 1944-45. He pressed the case for the new nation's elevation to Test status by scoring 137 not out against MCC on their 1951-52 tour. And on the opening day of first-class cricket by a Pakistani team in England, in 1954, he hit a thrilling 111 in two and a quarter hours at Worcester. In Tests, his approach was successful only spasmodically, but he enlivened the closing stages of Pakistan's hefty defeat at Trent Bridge with a rousing 69, getting out trying to hit a second successive six off Bob Appleyard. The press called him Merry Max. His success at Worcester helped him get work as a club professional in the area. He became chairman of Pakistan's selectors, in 1981-82, and a successful commentator and journalist: he was the first sports editor of The News, Rawalpindi.

MARSHALL, MALCOLM DENZIL, who died of cancer on November 4, 1999, aged 41, was one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. Even in the formidable line-up of West Indians whose speed and ferocity dominated world cricket for the last quarter of the 20th century, Marshall stood out: he allied sheer pace to consistent excellence for longer than anyone else; he was relentlessly professional and determined; and he was also the best batsman of the group, coming nearer than any recent West Indian to being an all-rounder of the quality of Garry Sobers. Though batsmen feared him, he was exceptionally popular among his peers: his death was mourned throughout the cricket world, but his fellow-professionals, who knew him best, were most deeply affected.

Marshall was born in St Michael, Barbados. As with Sobers, his triumphs grew out of childhood tragedy: his father was killed in a road accident when he was a baby, and he learned the game from his grandfather as well as at the beach and the playground. He began as a batsman, then discovered his ability to strike back. After playing just one first-class match for Barbados as a 19-year-old, he was taken to India amid the confusion of the World Series schism in the weakened team captained by Alvin Kallicharran. He made his Test debut, aged 20, in December 1978 at Bangalore. Marshall made no immediate impact at that level but showed enough to be taken on by Hampshire as successor to Andy Roberts. He missed part of the 1979 season because of the World Cup. But, with West Indies back to full strength, he could not get on the field for them; on the team picture, standing next to Joel Garner and Colin Croft, he looks an insignificant figure. In county cricket, meanwhile, he did not yet have the firepower to carry a struggling team.

However, on the 1980 tour he secured a Test place and at Manchester was instrumental in causing a collapse of seven wickets for 24. It began to be noted that, although not physically imposing - he was 5ft 11in - he had a natural balance and athleticism. Furthermore, he applied himself to his craft. In 1982, he was devastating, taking 134 wickets for Hampshire - a figure no one else touched in county cricket in the last 32 years of the century - and building a reputation as the bowler best avoided by anyone with a sense of self-preservation. Careful observers noted that he also bowled more Championship overs than anyone else. His first really dominant Test performance came at Port-of-Spain the following March, when he took five for 37 against India. When West Indies played Pakistan in the 1983 World Cup semi-final at The Oval, he worked up top speed even in a one-day game, and it was obvious - though he was still first-change - that the global fast-bowling crown now rested on his head.

And there it stayed. Batsmen agreed that Marshall was hardest of all to face because of the way he used his ordinary height to produce telling rather than exceptional bounce. He was, they said, a skiddy bowler. His out-swinger was magnificently controlled. And when he dropped short of a length - he was never shy of doing that - especially from round the wicket, he produced deliveries that were as physically intimidating as anything the game has seen. In 1983-84 he was the prime avenger for the World Cup final defeat by India, taking 33 wickets in a six-Test series which West Indies won 3-0. Less than four months later, he overpowered Australia's batsmen, taking five for 42 when they were 97 all out at Bridgetown, and five for 51 at Kingston. But it was at Headingley in July 1984 that he produced his most astonishing performance: on the first day, he broke his left thumb in the field and was assumed to be out of the game. When the ninth West Indian first-innings wicket fell, the England players were about to stroll off. Suddenly, Marshall marched down the dressing-room steps and batted one-handed long enough for Larry Gomes to score a century. Then, with his lower arm encased in pink plaster, Marshall took seven for 53: bowling first at his normal pace, then swinging the ball in the heavy northern air, throughout showing an indomitable ability to play through pain that in itself helped force England into submission. He recovered from the injury to blast England out with a fusillade of bouncers at The Oval: his seventh five-for in ten Tests, a sequence he took to 11 in 14 a few months later when he took command of the series in Australia.

At this point, Marshall was in his unbeatable prime. He set the tone for the 1985-86 series against England by breaking Mike Gatting's nose in a one-day international, just as he had done when he hit Andy Lloyd (who never recovered as a top-level cricketer) at the start of the 1984 series. And he led an assault on the New Zealand batsmen at Kingston in 1984-85 that may well have been the most intimidatory of the lot. No umpire in the world - and certainly none in the West Indies- had the courage to limit properly the number of bouncers.

But venom was only part of his armoury. Marshall acquired ringcraft at an early stage: he developed the in-swinger and the leg-cutter. And he became capable of playing vital Test innings as well, at No. 8 or even higher (he made 92 against India in 1983-84, and scored seven first-class centuries) without ever quite losing his fast bowler's relish in batting as a hobby. He produced another commanding performance with the ball at Lahore in 1986-87, and against the England rabble of 1988 took 35 wickets at just 12.65. Five of them came in an hour at Old Trafford where he finished with seven for 22 and England were 93 all out. He rarely bowled a bouncer in that series; there was no real need. But in the report of the Old Trafford game Wisden noted the progress of the unknown Ambrose at the other end. Batsmen never threatened Marshall's dominance but soon after West Indian bowlers did. He did another blazing match (11 for 89) against India at Port-of-Spain in 1988-89, but more often he was one of the pack, and he played his 81st and final at The Oval in 1991, where Graham Gooch became his 376th Test victim. This remained a West Indian record until Walsh overtook him in 1998-99. But Marshall's average of 20.94 is unsurpassed by any bowler who has taken 200 Test wickets.

Marshall continued playing for Hampshire for the next two seasons, and was thrilled to bits when they won the 1992 Benson and Hedges final. He returned to the club as coach in 1996, emphasising that this was not the ordinary businesslike relationship that exists between a county and an overseas pro. He became West Indies' coach that year too, though by the time he was taken ill during the 1999 World Cup, Marshall was inevitably taking his share of the blame for the team's inability to live up to the standards he had himself helped to set. The fact that both his old teams wished to employ him was a testament to the esteem in which he was held. He was diagnosed with cancer of the colon in the spring of 1999. Chemotherapy in England failed, and he went home to Barbados, marrying his girlfriend Connie a few weeks before he died.

It was his willingness to work hard at his game that made Malcolm Marshall supreme even in a great generation. He was a relentlessly probing and thoughtful opponent - his Hampshire team-mate Robin Smith said he could nominate the deliveries that would get players out. And, to an extent matched only by the slightly more sedate Walsh, he was willing to produce his best on dull days and dull pitches when other overseas players might lay off the accelerator. After play, he was affable among his fellow-pros and polite to all-comers. He was contemptuous of his West Indian contemporaries who went to South Africa to bolster apartheid in 1982-83 but, when the politics changed in the 1990s, he went to play and coach in Natal, where he became as revered as in Southampton or Bridgetown. Across the continents, to a generation of cricketers unused to the death of their friends, the loss of Marshall came as a savage blow. Five West Indian captains were among the pallbearers.

NAIK, AJIT D., who died suddenly on February 28, 1999, aged 49, was a seam bowler and captain of the Indian Schools team that beat MCC Schools at Lord's in 1967. Some of his team-mates went on to play for India. Naik played three seasons for Bombay in the early 1970s, and helped them win the last three Ranji Trophies of their unbroken 15-year run, but thereafter concentrated on a job in marketing.

NASEER MALIK, died on August 1, 1999, aged 49, after a heart attack. Naseer was a brisk seamer who bowled Pakistan's first ball ever in a world Cup match - to Alan Turner of Australia at Leeds in 1975. He played in all three of Pakistan's games in the tournament, taking five wickets at 19.60 each, but played no other international cricket.

OLIVER, SYLVESTER, who died in February 1999, aged 69, was a Trinidadian all-rounder who settled in Todmorden to play Lancashire League cricket from 1959 to 1968. He hit 132 with eight sixes for South v North in Trinidad's annual Beaumont Cup match in 1957-58.

ORR-EWING of Little Berkhamsted, Baron, died on August 19, 1999, aged 87. As Ian Orr-Ewing, he had been Conservative MP for Hendon North and a junior minister. Under both titles, he was a leading light of the Lords and Commons cricket team. After picking a woman MP, Cheryl Gillan, he said: It's tricky to get 12 chaps on parade these days. Used to be if you scored 100, you'd get a pat on the back from the chief whip. Now your constituency chairman asks why you weren't with your constituents. When he was outside broadcasts manager at the BBC, he hired Brian Johnston.

PARDOE, HENRY WILFRED, died on August 7, 1999, aged 75. Harry Pardoe was secretary of the Lancashire and Cheshire Cricket Society for 31 years. He saw Muralitharan bowl Lancashire to victory at Derby the day before he died, and said he had never enjoyed a day's cricket so much.

PARKAR, RAMNATH DHONDU, died on August 11, 1999, aged 52. He had been in a coma for three years after an accident riding his scooter to work. Parkar was a small, nifty batsman who played two Tests against England in 1972-73 without scoring above 35. He had earned his place with a majestic 195 for Bombay against the Rest of India, and he was a successful player in the Ranji Trophy throughout the 1970s. Parkar was a superb fielder, especially in the covers. Ajit Wadekar compared his falling-over sweep to that of Rohan Kanhai; less kind judges called him a compulsive hooker.

PARSONS, ARTHUR BRIAN DOUGLAS, died on February 11, 1999, aged 65. Brian Tich Parsons was a Cambridge Blue who broke the mould by joining Surrey as a professional. He arrived at university with a formidable schoolboy reputation from Brighton College but, after an impressive start, dropped down the batting order and out of the team. He was barely 5ft 4in tall but hooked powerfully even at school, where he became a protégé of the Surrey secretary Brian Castor. In 1958, after national service, he went on to the Surrey staff, became their opening bat and performed steadily enough to pass 1,000 runs three times and win his cap in 1961. He was a popular figure but failed to translate natural talent into cricketing success. Contemporaries differed about whether this was due to his easy-going nature or extreme nervousness.

PLIMSOLL, JACK BRUCE, who died on November 11, 1999, aged 82, was a left-arm swing bowler who toured England with the 1947 South Africans. His only Test was at Old Trafford, where he took three for 128 in a big Edrich-and-Compton-dominated England first innings, including Hutton for 12. He captured 68 wickets on the tour and 155 in all at just 23.10 in a career wrecked by the war; he was an effective performer for both Western Province and Natal. Plimsoll managed the 1965 South African tour to England and would have managed the cancelled 1970 tour.

PROFFITT, STANLEY, died on January 3, 1999, aged 88. Born in Oldham, he played for the Lancashire Second Eleven before moving on to open for Essex in seven matches in 1937. He was an England international table-tennis player, and after the war played exhibition matches as a stage act.

RAMACHANDRAN, P. S., died on August 16, 1999, aged 88. Pattu Ramachandran was a medium-pace bowler who played in the inaugural Ranji Trophy match for Madras against Mysore in 1934-35. He opened the Madras bowling for the next two seasons and took ten for 18 in a club match for Mylapore against Triplicane.

RAM SINGH, AMRITSAR GOVIND, who died on August 11, 1999, aged 89, was one of the best Indian all-rounders of his generation. Ram Singh was a highly effective left-arm spinner and left-hand batsman who was considered highly unlucky never to play a Test match. Apparently he was left out of the 1946 team to England because the selectors thought he had a heart problem. Ram Singh did play in two unofficial Tests, including the match between India and Lord Tennyson's XI at Lahore in 1937-38 which was interrupted by an earthquake. He took the first-ever wicket in the Ranji Trophy, for Madras against Mysore in 1934-35, and went on to get 11 for 35 in the match, which embarrassingly finished in a day; in all he took 164 Ranji wickets at an average of 16. He coached Madras to the 1954-55 Ranji Trophy and was a mentor to many successful Indian cricketers, leaving youngsters open-mouthed by his ability to land the ball on a coin in the nets. His sons Kripal Singh and Milkha Singh both made the Test team.

RICHARDSON, RONALD ALFRED, who died on November 17, 1998, aged 71, was a Yorkshire-born batsman who played 13 first-class matches for North-Eastern Transvaal in the 1950s. He scored 140 not out against Eastern Province in 1954-55, and captained the team against MCC in 1956-57. He returned to England, played for Cheshire from 1963 to 1970, and was president of the club when he died.

RICHES, JOHN DANSEY HURRY, who died on November 5, 1999, aged 78, played one first-class match for Glamorgan in 1947, and captained the Second Eleven for the first nine seasons after the war. His father, Norman, was Glamorgan's captain in their first season in the Championship, 1921.

ROBINSON, GEORGE DAVID, who died on march 12, 1999, aged 78, was a batsman who played a part in Western Australia's success in winning the Sheffield Shield at the first attempt in 1947-48. He was named vice-captain to Keith Carmody and played in all the state's four games, scoring 90 in the inaugural match against South Australia and 134 in the next match against Victoria. He was already a doctor, and he took morning and evening surgery before and after going to the WACA. He retired after the season and later spent 25 years as director of anaesthesia at the Western General Hospital in Melbourne.

ROSE, ROBERT PETER, who died on May 12, 1999, aged 47, was a highly promising batsman for Victoria in the early 1970s. He had handsome strokes and a calm temperament, which came together in one brilliant performance against Queensland in 1973-74 when he scored 118 not out and 88. In the first innings, he joined Alan Sieler with the score 43 for four; they put on 271, a Shield fifth-wicket record for Victoria, in 259 minutes. Rose's career was destroyed in 1974, when he was in a car crash which left him a quadriplegic, a disability he accepted with nobility. Like his father and three uncles, he had played Australian Rules football for Collingwood. His younger brother Peter is a poet.

SAMPSON, HENRY CHARLES, who died from cancer on July 19, 1999, aged 52, scored his only century on his first-class debut. Sampson was a left-handed bat who scored 119 for Central Districts against Wellington in 1970-71. Though he played a number of handsome innings in his 36 subsequent matches, for Central, Otago and then Canterbury, he never again reached 100. Sampson was also a capable stand-in wicket-keeper.

SHARMA, Professor RAMAN CHAND, was killed on January 7, 1999, aged 53, when a bus hit the jeep he was driving. He umpired the India v Sri Lanka Test at Lucknow in 1993-94 and 11 one-day internationals.

SHEARER, EDGAR DONALD REID, CBE, TD, died on July 9, 1999, aged 90. Donald Shearer played 13 first-class matches for Ireland from 1933 to 1952. His finest hour came, however, when he made 101 for the Gentleman of Ireland in a non-first-class match against MCC at Lord's in 1951. Shearer was better-known as a footballer: he played for Ireland and, in the 1936 Olympics, for England, when he scored twice against Poland. In the war, he rose to colonel in the Royal Artillery and commanded the garrison at Tobruk; later he became a prominent Belfast businessman.

SINGLETON, ALEXANDER PARKINSON, died on March 22, 1999, aged 84. Sandy Singleton was a zestful and enthusiastic captain of Oxford (in 1937) and Worcestershire (in 1946). Though he started at university as a tailender, he became a forceful batsman as well as bowling useful off-breaks. Some thought he might have forced his way on to the 1946-47 Australian tour, as a potential future captain. But most of the team had been picked in midsummer before he had a chance to establish himself. Instead, Singleton returned to Rhodesia, where he had met his wife before the war. He represented Rhodesia for four seasons, and farmed and taught there before finally retiring to Australia.

STOLLMEYER, VICTOR HUMPHREY, who died on September 21, 1999, aged 83, scored 96 in his only Test innings for West Indies. Vic Stollmeyer was a Trinidadian right-hander and a last-minute selection for the last Test match before the war, at The Oval in 1939. According to his younger brother Jeff, he had been told he was not playing and so went out on the town the night before the game. Luckily, West Indies fielded first. When West Indies did bat, Vic Stollmeyer ran out George Headley, but stayed out there to put on 163 in 100 minutes with Bam Bam Weekes, scoring his runs in what Wisden called perfect style in just two and a quarter hours. By the time West Indies played another Test, his career was over; Jeff, however, went on to become captain.

SWANNELL, EDWARD CHARLES, died on December 21, 1998, aged 89. Ted Swannell was MCC head groundsman from 1955 to 1969, years when the problems of the Lord's pitch entered national folklore, and the alleged ridge at the Nursery End became the most famous since Vimy. He battled manfully with the problems in the manner of the old-fashioned Lord's retainer, relying on deference towards his superiors and a deep knowledge of the grass and soil.

TAYLOR, JASWICK OSSIE, who died on November 13, 1999, aged 67, was a hardworking fast-medium bowler from Trinidad who played in three Tests for West Indies. He made his debut against Pakistan on his home ground in 1957-58, opening the bowling with Roy Gilchrist, who promptly sprained an ankle. Taylor had to lead the attack, and finished with five for 109 in a Pakistani total of 496 that preceded an innings victory. The following season, Taylor went on the tour of the subcontinent, but the emergence of Wes Hall restricted his opportunities, and he played in only two of the Tests, taking five more wickets.

TENDULKAR, RAMESH, died of a heart attack on May 18, 1999, aged 66, while his son Sachin was in the midst of the World Cup. Tendulkar senior was well-known in his own right as a Marathi-language poet; he taught literature at a Mumbai college. His funeral was brought forward by half an hour to avoid the build-up of crowds. Sachin had flown home when he was given the news and did not play in the match against Zimbabwe, which India lost, then returned to score 140 not out against Kenya, an innings he dedicated to his father.

THORNYCROFT, GUY MYTTON, DL, who died on January 8, 1999, aged 81, played one match for Worcestershire, against Combined Services in 1947.

TRAVERS, BASIL HOLMES, AM, OBE, died on December 18, 1998, aged 79. Jika (pronounced Jyker) Travers was an outsize Australian who played rugby for England, winning six caps as flanker, including one in January 1948 against Australia at Twickenham. At the time, he was a student at Oxford, where he won cricket Blues in the strong sides of both 1946 and 1948. Travers was already in his late twenties and had served as a Brigade Major with Australian forces in New Guinea. As a cricketer, he was an aggressive middle-order batsman and bowled medium-pace with a bit of swing. He returned to Australia and had a long career as headmaster of his old school in Sydney.

TREVELYAN, PERCY, who died on January 4, 1999, aged 94, was head steward at Headingley for more than 50 years, until he was past 90. In his later years he was in charge of the committee room, where he was extremely popular, while stewards with a different approach dealt with the Western Terrace.

WALDRON, Major ALAN NOEL EDWIN, who died on September 2, 1999, aged 78, played four first-class matches in 1948, two for Hampshire and two for Combined Services. He scored 52 for Hampshire against the Services.

WASHBROOK, CYRIL, CBE, who died on April 27, 1999, aged 84, was an always staunch and sometimes brilliant opening batsman for Lancashire and England. He flourished either side of the Second World War, and his name will for ever be paired in history with that of Len Hutton, with whom he opened for England 51 times. Their average partnership was 60, which from this distance seems like unparalleled riches, although they played in often perilous times for England. In the popular imagination, he is remembered for two other things. One was his comeback in 1956 when, as a selector, he made a dramatic return to the Test team, aged 41. The other was the jaunty angle of his cap which hinted at a carefree nature. In fact, he was a diffident man, and he masked this by acquiring a rather forbidding exterior as he gained authority.

His cricket, however, gave pleasure right from the start. In his second match for Lancashire, as an 18-year-old in 1933, Washbrook made 152, and Neville Cardus wrote in the Manchester Guardian: He looks like a cricketer, has a cricketer's face and wears his flannels like a cricketer. He went on to become the very embodiment of a Lancashire cricketer, and remained deeply associated with the county until his sad and lingering final illness.

Washbrook was born in Barrow, near Clitheroe, but his family moved to Shropshire. From Bridgnorth Grammar School, he might have gone to either Warwickshire or Worcestershire or, since he had many gifts, Wolves or West Bromwich Albion. But when he arrived at Old Trafford, the old opener Harry Makepeace, now coach, took him under his wing as his protégé and successor. After his brilliant start, however, Washbrook fell back somewhat and it was 1935 before he finally established himself in the side, hitting 1,724 runs and coming fifth in the national averages. He was still dropped once from the side in 1936, to Cardus's disgust. A year later he made his England debut, alongside Denis Compton, at The Oval against New Zealand in 1937. But he made only nine and eight not out, and missed the opportunity for the then infinitely greater honour of a Test against Australia the following year.

Cyril Washbrook

In the war, Washbrook was a PT instructor in the RAF, and he was 30 before he was at last able to fulfil his destiny. In Australia in 1946-47, he and Hutton had three successive century stands, and Washbrook emerged as one of the recognisable cricketers of a heroic cricketing age: The chin, always square and thrust out a little, wrote Cardus, the square shoulders, the pouting chest, the cock of cricket cap, his easy loose movement, his wonderful swoop at cover and the deadly velocity of his throw in. The tensing of his shoulders as he prepared to face the bowling, the preliminary champing of his feet - every sign of determined awareness, every sign of combined attack and defence, his mind ready to signal swiftly either to infantry, cavalry, or for cover behind the sand bags.

He was, from the start, strongest on the leg side and was one of the great hookers and pullers; he also had a ferocious square cut. No fast bowler ever changed his demeanour. He was like concrete, said Wilfred Wooller. Washbrook was in his pomp in the late 1940s. He scored six Test centuries of varying moods, but roughly equal quality. The first came against Australia at Melbourne in 1946-47, where a huge crowd saw him battle six hours for 112. He got another at Headingley in 1948, where he hit what Wisden called an almost faultless 143 in the Ashes match where England reached 423 for two but still lost. Five months later, in South Africa. Hutton and Washbrook put on 359, still an England first-wicket record, in 290 minutes on the first day of Test cricket at Ellis Park. Washbrook made a chanceless 195, his highest Test score. He hit an unbeaten 103, mostly with a runner, against New Zealand at Leeds in 1949 and scored two more centuries, both in defeat, in the 1950 series against West Indies. He was apparently reluctant to tour Australia in 1950-51, and it showed: he was also troubled by the mystery spinner, Jack Iverson. From then on, he faded out of the Test team (apparently against Hutton's wishes when he was captain). In 1954 he became Lancashire's first professional captain and in 1956 a Test selector.

The historic moment came that July, after England had lost to Australia at Lord's. More than five years after his last Test appearance, his colleagues on the selection panel requested him to leave the room. On his return, they asked if he would play at Headingley. He was 41, and the decision was greeted first with astonishment and then with delight. Washbrook made 98, sharing a stand of 187 with May after England had been reduced to 17 for three. England won the game, and Washbrook stayed in the team to play less heroic roles as Jim Laker worked his magic at Manchester and gave England the best of a draw at The Oval.

ENGLAND OPENING PARTNERSHIPS

Tests

Innings

Unbroken

Runs

Average

L. Hutton/ C. Washbrook

28

51

3

2,880

60.00

M. A. Atherton/ A. J. Stewart

30

50

1

1,930

39.38

G. Boycott/ G. A. Gooch

25

49

3

1,752

38.08

M. A. Atherton/ G. A. Gooch

24

44

0

2,501

56.84

J. B. Hobbs/ H. Sutcliffe

25

38

1

3,249

87.81

J. B. Hobbs/ W. Rhodes

22

36

1

2,146

61.31

G. Boycott/ J. H. Edrich

21

35

3

1,672

52.25

He remained Lancashire captain until retiring in 1959; a strong team never managed to challenge Surrey's domination, but they usually played cricket that reflected Washbrook's iron discipline - and self-discipline. Geoff Puller was horrified when he heard an opponent called the skipper Washy. In 1964, Washbrook became the club's cricket manager and he was an England selector again in 1971 and 1972. This time he was not asked to make a comeback - though even when he was near 50, he scored 85 for MCC in a centenary match against Lancashire. Washbrook remained close to Old Trafford until illness overtook him; the feeling was mutual - his benefit, of £14,000 in 1948, remained a record for more than two decades before inflation rendered comparisons meaningless. John Major, in his first year as prime minister, awarded him a very belated CBE in 1991. Washbrook was the last survivor of the Lancashire team that won the Championship outright in 1934 but, though he lived another 65 years, did not see a repetition.

WHITE, EDWARD CLIVE STEWART, died on October 10, 1999, aged 86. Ted White toured England with the 1938 Australians. He bowled quickish left-arm spin, which was not quite good enough to get him into a team including both Bill O'Reilly and Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, and never played a Test match. However, he was a very useful Shield all-rounder; he claimed eight for 31, with a spell of four for nought, for New South Wales against South Australia in 1935-36, and took an unbeaten 108, batting at No. 10, off the same opposition a year later. He and his father Alfred were the first father and son to score centuries for New South Wales.

WINROW, ROBERT, died on August 10, 1998, aged 88. Bob Winrow was a left-handed bat with a frustrating but ultimately dramatic career for Nottinghamshire. He had originally joined the staff in 1929 but played only one game in six years before getting a chance against Somerset at Trent Bridge in 1935. Winrow promptly rose to startling heights as a batsman, scoring 137 - with three sixes and 18 fours - at No. 9. He shared a stand of 220 with his captain, G. F. H. Heane, which remains the county's eighth-wicket record. However, he got only three more games that season, and became a professional in Scotland, which he represented twice after the war. His younger brother Harry had a more durable career with the county.

WOOLMER, CLARENCE SHIRLEY, who died on February 10, 1999, aged 88, played one match for United Provinces against Maharashtra at Kanpur in 1948-49. His son Bob played for England and coached South Africa.

WORTHINGTON, PRIMROSE, who died on January 23, 1999, aged 93, was the last surviving grandchild of W. G. Grace. She remembered sitting on his knee and tying ribbons in his beard.

YOUDELL, MAURICE ARTHUR, MBE, who died of cancer on December 23, 1999, aged 65, was president of Nottinghamshire. Youdell was a local builder who had been on the committee for 25 years and chairman in 1993-94. He was a tireless worker for the National Association of Boys' Clubs.

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